Organizing Conversations: PSFK Talks To Peter Rojas on gdgt

PSFK caught up with gdgt founder Peter Rojas recently, and he discussed what his new gadget site is all about, and what inspired its unique structure.

A sense that the future of the web was going to be social rather than top down prompted Rojas to look into creating a new kind of gadget site that was designed for optimal interaction, and shareability.

Peter explained that the web has changed in two fundamental ways – there is now an expectation of interaction, and that the audience has figured out how to organize itself. These changes fueled him to create gdgt, which acts as an open but structured place to organize activity around gadgets. Built on product reviews, gdgt lets users post their own, and comment on other user’s reviews. Requests and questions can also be posed to the gdgt community, and members are able to create embeddable widgets that list what items they own, and want.

Though most content on the site is user-generated, Rojas and his partner Ryan Block still produce a limited amount — including a series of podcasts which actually began 10 months before the launch of the site to keep their audience up to date on how gdgt was progressing, and to generate excitement over the pending launch.

gdgt is also hosting a reader meet-up, and official launch party tonight in New York if you’d like to get hands-on with some gadgets, and meet the team.